ARTIST: Tom Brosseau
TITLE: Empty Houses Are Lonely
LABEL: Fat Cat
GENRE: Folk
TIME: 42:41 min
SIZE: 47,1 MB
RIP DATE: Mar-23-2006
RELEASE DATE: Feb-20-2006
WEBSITE: n/a
Track List:
01. Fragile Mind 03:31
02. Everybody Knows Empty Houses Are Lonely 03:14
03. Hurt To Try 04:28
04. Mary Anne 03:05
05. Dark Garage 05:24
06. Heart Of Mine 05:02
07. The Broken Ukulele 04:28
08. How To Grow A Woman From The Ground 04:52
09. Lonesome Valley 03:57
10. Bars 04:40
Release Notes:
It was on Doug Schulkind's WFMU radio show "Give the
The Drummer Some" that we first came to hear the
gentle acoustic sound of Tom Brosseau's music. A
natural songwriting talent coming from such
disparate influences as Nick Drake, Cole Porter, and
Woody Guthrie, Tom sings songs of lost love and
poetic observation that shimmer like aural tintypes.
Ostensibly a collection of highlights from his
recorded history to date, augmented by several new
recordings, æEmpty Houses Are LonelyÆ works as a
fine introduction to TomÆs plaintive, eloquent,
timeless music.
The ingredient in this mix that will flat out give
you chills is Brosseau's voice, which sounds eerily
like a high-lonesome reincarnation of Jeff Buckley.
High, limber and sometimes vibrato-tinged, it seems
to hover between the masculine and feminine. His
playing elicits a hushed reverence from admiring
listeners blessed with the intimacy and emotional
immediacy of his live performances. His songs have
the quality of an intimate conversation at the next
table that you just can't pull your ear away from.
He can be hauntingly moody and atmospheric, and
avoids the typical garden-variety
verse-chorus-bridge song structures in his writing.
Tom Brosseau is on to something new by way of
something old - deep, heartbreaking, and entirely
worth hearing.
Now living in LA, Tom was born and raised in Grand
Forks, North Dakota. He comes from a family steeped
in music - growing up in a house with instruments
lining the walls, and learning to play at an early
age. He was taught guitar by his grandmother, whilst
his grandfather played in a band called Buck and the
Buccaneers, that included fiddle and double bass.
His grandfather also had a great collection of
records, and Tom's early influences included Guy
Lormbardo and The Inkspots. Following High School,
after graduating college from the University of
North Dakota, Tom started out in earnest at music
school, but left after only a couple of weeks - the
formal theory just took the fun out it for him. Soon
after, he started playing out in his home town,
doing his first shows in open mic sessions at a
place called the Peanut Bar. Not long after he met a
girl at Sundance in Utah who took him to California,
was introduced to Gregory Page- a San Diego music
staple.
Tom Brosseau takes up the story:
ôæEmpty Houses are LonelyÆ is a compilation of
songs, most of them recorded and produced by Gregory
Page, in San Diego and Poway, California. Gregory
Page is the kind of person who is devoted to
recording and writing and making albums- always is
working on something, or helping someone. He has
this great story about sitting on Paul McCartney's
lap at a bull fight in Spain. His mother was part of
a group from the 1960's called The Beat Chicks, and
they opened the only two shows the Beatles ever did
in Madrid. Apparently, right before the matador put
the bull to death, Paul covered baby Gregory's eyes
- pretty sweet. Not a lot of people have heard these
songs - a couple of them are officially previously
unreleased, æBarsÆ and æHurt To TryÆ. Most of the
songs come from the albums Gregory Page produced
entitled æNorth DakotaÆ and æOuttakes, v.1 (a.k.a. 5
song demo)Æ. The other album from which songs were
pulled is æLate Night at LargoÆ, produced by a
fellow of the name Mark Flanagan. My whole reason
for leaving San Diego, California, has a lot to do
with Flanny. It was a thrill to record at Largo.
Scott Fritz, who recorded æLate NightÆ, is pretty
great, and really captured the room. He set up this
one microphone and that's all we recorded with - I
sat up on stage and played.
I think æEmpty HousesÆ really represents well the
early days in San Diego, Poway, and Los Angeles,
California. It seemed like I lived in so many places
during this time: rented a room in a house, rented a
room in a house with my girlfriend, rented an
apartment with my girlfriend, moved out from my
girlfriend and rented a sleeper in an old hotel,
moved from the hotel to a house with a roommate,
moved from San Diego. I am affected by the places I
have lived, I would say. I think that some strange
spirit was looming around in the old hotel where I
lived, in the Golden Hills room that I rented too -
things were darker during this time, listen to
æFragile MindÆ and æHow To Grow A Woman From The
GroundÆ. I have been living in Los Angeles in the
same place for three years in a section of town
known as Echo Park. Echo Park is quite historic;
it's one of the last stops on Sunset blvd. before
Chinatown, before downtown and Union Station. There
are all of these mansions in my neighborhood that
seem to rise out of nowhere - they used to film
Buster Keaton movies here. On a good day, you can
see the rolling hillside up on Bonnie Brae street,
across from Echo Park pondà. you can sometimes make
out the æHollywoodÆ signà every hour the ice cream
man slowly drives by, with that song being
broadcasted out, ringing down the streets. It seems
like every where I've lived becomes my new home -
and thankfully so.ö